News April 2018

Annual Parish Meeting 7 pm
Wednesday 11 April in church.
Followed by a brief PCC meeting to elect officers.
All are welcome to become PCC members:
Contact Sarah or Philip for Application forms.

WANTED! PCC SECRETARY
Veryan needs someone to take over from Sarah as secretary of
the PCC (she is expecting to take on the role of treasurer
instead)
PLEASE, if you would like to help, contact Sarah for a chat –
500950.
And it would be good if someone would also volunteer to run the
‘100 Club’ – it’s a useful addition to our income, it doesn’t involve
a lot of work but needs to be revived. Contact Sarah if you
can help [500950].

Contributions from parishes towards Diocesan costs was discussed at a recent Deanery meeting. The Diocese of Truro, like all other Anglican Dioceses, provides certain services for its parishes [these include legal and
financial support and advice, training and support for parish priests, management of clergy houses and glebe land etc].
Unlike many other Dioceses, Truro, as a new creation in 1877,
has no ancient endowments, land or investments, and is largely dependent
on contributions from individual parishes to provide the funding to run the Diocesan office and its obligations. Currently the income from parishes
is not enough to maintain the Diocese which is having to dip into its modest reserves to balance the budget. Recent arrangements have allowed
parishes to make an offer that they feel they can afford, so that in theory richer parishes can support those which are less welloff. The Diocese suggests that this is not working and is asking for a cost-based system whereby each parish pays the full amount of its ministry and other support costs. Our cluster clergy have responded to this:
•reminding the Diocese of the many hours of volunteer time in parishes which seem not to be acknowledged by the Diocese as ‘in kind’ support, worth, in money terms, a very considerable amount. This of course includes
the chairmen and members of numerous Diocesan committees who give their time and expertise freely.
•The cost of ministry is known but we have no idea of the overall cost
of Diocesan staff salaries and other costs.
•Many active members of congregations are pensioners who should
not be expected to bridge the gap in the Diocesan pensions fund.
•If it isn’t good practice for the Diocese to meet the shortfall out
of its reserves, it is equally unfair to expect parishes to do so.
•Given that parishes have to work hard to generate income, maybe
the Diocese could organise a few fund raising activities of its own?

Welcome to Veryan in April to yet more far-flung members of Philip Clear’s
family – our brave Napoleonic soldier has relations all over the world,
it seems: Ann Waugh and her husband are from Brisbane, Australia, and
hope to be with us around 14-16 April.
Family ties are still close for many people: you have only to look at the visitors’ book to see how many note ‘looking for family graves’
or ‘our great-great-greatgrandparents came from here’ The new visitors’
book has a space for email contact, so we may be able to maintain the connection even after our visitors have gone home, maybe with a
brief newsletter update on church and parish events –
any volunteers?